The present invention relates to a personal hygiene mirror that can be held between a user's legs.
It may become necessary for a person to perform personal hygiene procedures in the area of his or her genital or anal areas, e.g., the installation of tampons, suppositories, catheters and birth control devices such as sponges and diaphragms, as well as self examination procedures to aid in the early detection and treatment of hemorrhoids, cysts, tumors, genital rashes, fissures, etc.
It may be difficult to perform the procedure without the use of a mirror. However, since the person's hands will be occupied in performing the hygiene procedure, the person cannot hold the mirror.
For example, females with a neurogenic bladder condition to perform a self-catheterizing procedure wherein a catheter tube is inserted into the vagina to cause urine to flow. This procedure requires the use of a mirror and is very difficult to accomplish with one hand holding the mirror.
There have previously been proposed mirrors which are able to be held by a person's leg or legs. One such mirror, disclosed in Baczkowski U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,680, can be strapped to one leg of a person. It will be appreciated that such a mirror is not ideally suited for viewing the genital or anal area, especially if the procedure being performed requires the person to spread his or her legs far apart. That is, when the legs are spaced apart, the mirror is carried away from the genital or crotch area.
There is disclosed in Levy U.S. Pat. No. 3,411,842 a personal hygiene mirror assembly which leaves a person's hands free to shave or apply facial make-up. That mirror assembly includes a mirror which is mounted between a pair of clamps. The assembly is adapted to be held between a person's legs by moving the legs toward one another and against the horizontally open sides of the clamps. The clamps are spring-biased outwardly to keep the clamps pressed against the person's legs and also to enable the inclination of the mirror to be adjusted about a horizontal axis. That is, by pressing the clamps toward one another, a motion transfer linkage connected between the clamps and mirror, causes the mirror to be pivoted about the horizontal axis so that the user can direct the mirror toward the person's face. Such a mirror assembly is not ideally suited as a personal hygiene mirror for viewing a person's anal or genital area, because of the inability to maintain the mirror inclination while spreading the legs apart. The assembly is designed such that the person must position his or her legs relatively close together, and only little movement of the legs thereafter is possible; if the person spreads the legs too far apart, the assembly would fall off the legs.